


Dead and Gone and Passed

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Ashes to Ashes [2]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Stargate Fusion, Drinking to Cope, Execution, Goa'uld (Stargate), Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, M/M, Nanites, Nanites (Stargate), Pre-Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts, Terrorism, Treason, War, ZERO System (Gundam Wing)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:40:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: He needed Une on the first transport back to them, and then he needed to find an old Warrant officer and explosives. Treize had a damn bad feeling about it and he'd need solid proof of it before he went forward. Christ on a crutch, this had not been a part of his plan. Not even remotely, and he felt guilty. He should have checked her before he sent her to the colonies. He'd have to institute more routine checks of personnel once he was sure of things. It made his chest hurt. That she had misunderstood what had been such a simple order was one thing, an unthinkable thing. That she was most likely under the influence of a parasite was much worse. It nagged him when he burst into the Operations Center, and they all went appropriately silent.
Relationships: Chang Wufei/Treize Khushrenada
Series: Ashes to Ashes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711870
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	Dead and Gone and Passed

"Check your mediastreams." That was certainly one way to respond to a greeting. "And then tell me if Une is really functionally fucking insane or just a complete idiot."

Not how he expected to be greeted when he was standing in his on-base office, about to head to another meeting. "There's so many options there, Mirialdo, I..." He had been in the middle of turning on the screen when he started to give a mouthy response, but fell quiet.

"So many options and yet so few simultaneously. What the fuck," Zechs hissed, voice low and angry. "What the literal actual fuck. When do you expect her back, by the way?" Probably so he could plot Une's assassination. 

He hated it when he had no words left, and yet he watched the video on what seemed like an eternal infernal loop of the news that Darlian had been assassinated. That... hadn't been the plan. And Une spouting insanity on the news. "The fuck. I, that's not what I told her."

"That's not what you told her but apparently it's what she heard." There was an edge to his voice, and it wasn't as though Treize didn't understand why it was there. He didn't understand what she had done.

"I said deal with him politically. He was useful, this is..." He turned toward Miliardo, knowing his mouth was agape, but nothing made sense. "I meant bribe him!"

"Well, obviously she didn't get the message. You're too subtle and she fucking well isn't." Zechs shoved a hand into his dark blond hair, ruffling it into messy strands. "So I suggest you put that brilliant political mind of yours to considering how to fix it. Or at the very least get her back here."

And she was claiming terrorism while looking quite clearly unhinged, which meant they'd need to come up with evidence that it was terrorism or his plans would start to unravel because Une and OZ would be the obvious targets and this was insane. He could not remember the last time he had felt so angry, so undone by it, as he watched the news feeds overlap and over run each other. "I have a plan."

"Well I hope to god it's better than hers. She looks like she's about to crack, for fuck's sake. The Vice Minister is missing and so is his attache. Who also happens to be his daughter." And there was something there, something about the way that he said it, that made Treize's brain perk up and pay attention.

"Yes, but now isn't the time to discuss nepotism," Treize drawled. He leaned in and dialed up the ops center, not at all surprised to see the look on Zechs's face.

"You pick the most ridiculous times to make jokes, Treize." That wasn't what was actually bothering him, though. He was far too familiar with Zechs by now to make that mistake.

"I do, yes, I apologize." He smiled while he said it, waiting for Ops to pick up, why on Earth was he _waiting_? Dammit. Damn. "I have to go. We'll take care of it."

"We." Zechs looked at him. He'd have been peering over the edge of glasses if he hadn't been so vain. "Call me if you need me. I'll be making some calls of my own." Probably to try and figure out where Darlian's daughter was.

"Yes. The royal we, yes." He lifted a hand in a wave to Zechs, and then closed out the call before turning to march down the hall. He needed Une on the first transport back to them, and then he needed to find an old Warrant officer and explosives. He had a damn bad feeling about it and he'd need solid proof of it before he went forward. Christ on a crutch, this had not been a part of his plan. Not even remotely, and he felt guilty. He should have checked her before he sent her to the colonies. He'd have to institute more routine checks of personnel once he was sure of things. It made his chest hurt. That she had misunderstood what had been such a simple order was one thing, an unthinkable thing. That she was most likely under the influence of a parasite was much worse. It nagged him when he burst into the Operations Center, and they all went appropriately silent.

"When I call, I expect someone to pick up!" He let his voice rise, deep and sharp in the silence. "Captain Fitzsimmons, alert on Major Une's tracking beacon and send a unit to bring her here. Immediately."

"Sir, yes, sir!" Fitzsimmons was a waste of time and space; he was not one of Treize's men. He was Romefeller, through and through, but maybe he could at least manage that much.

There was no relief to come for the daft child, either, as where other colonels would swan back out and allow silence to fill the gap, Treize pulled up a chair at a terminal and started to look for who among the older OZ warrants he knew might be on duty. It also meant he got to see whether his order was carried through or not.

That seemed to put a rush on it; he could see the look of irritation in the flick of Fitzsimmons's eyebrow, but he was at least making an obvious effort to do what needed doing, typing rapidly and starting to make the appropriate calls. He was probably also cursing and hoping that Treize would take himself off to anywhere but his location so that he could do what needed to be done without someone lurking over his shoulder. But no, no, that young captain needed to be made miserable because he'd fucked up doing the one thing that was his job -- picking up the call when the commander made it. Treize managed to snag a number, a warrant who could help him. If he was right, it was all going to be a fucking mess.

They'd need all the help they could get.

* * *

He wasn't wrong, as it turned out. Unfortunate for multiple reasons, but mostly unfortunate because Major Une Schmidt had been efficient and crisp. She'd understood him and his plans. They’d had a distant history, back when the world seemed somehow less cruel, though it had been no such thing. He’d simply been less aware of it.

This creature didn't understand a damned thing aside from its own desires, and those desires were questionable at best. Fucking Goa'uld.

It had tried to blend in, and he'd been so busy it had gotten away with it for longer than it ought to have. That was his fault, unfortunately, for not paying better attention, for not _anticipating_ that a Goa'uld would jump into anything that it might think was a source of power.

"I only wish to serve you, Colonel Khushrenada, as best I can." Like he hadn't seen that glinting gold. As if he didn't know the history.

No Goa'uld ever served anyone but itself. And if one of them had taken possession of Une, god knows who else was compromised. The round of imaging scans had already been implemented and were going well. Anyone who didn't show up at the assigned time would automatically be assumed to be infected and brought directly to a cell.

"What could you offer?" He'd asked because he had to ask, because he wanted to know what had cost him his best aide de camp.

And then, of course, there had been a spill of blah-blah-blah lies and promises, random bullshit about weapons of untold power, weapons that could surely defeat the Gundams, ad nauseam, etc, etc. Treize had almost wanted to laugh.

Almost.

He made sure it was taken care of precisely, that it was recorded so no one could say an injustice had been served. It was down in the brig, and Une was bound, standing upright, a caged mask over her mouth so she could talk but the creature couldn't get far if it tried to project itself free. Nothing it said to him changed his mind. Nothing it said made any difference whatsoever, and so when he pressed the button and set off the charges at the nape of her neck, he did so with absolute certainty.

Then he went back to his office, pulled out the bottle of whiskey in the bottom drawer, and proceeded to get thoroughly smashed.

Une had been an excellent soldier. There was no family to notify. She... fuck. Fuck. To lose her to something so stupid, so careless. He wrote a notification for his closest staff so the rumor mill didn't have the final say. He stressed the importance of following protocol on decontamination, and post-colony screening processes. Treize drank his whiskey neat, and had no one to give it a second read-over before he sent it.

After he sent it, he polished off the rest of the bottle.

He was mostly confused when someone shook his shoulder, and he was still pretty drunk. "Hey. Hey, come on. You can't be here like this." Lots of red wobbled into his vision, a wall of it. Ah. Zechs. "Come on. I'll take you home and make the right calls."

"Who're we calling?" He stood up, mostly _into_ Mirialdo, but the fabric of his tunic was stiff and scraping and brought him to his senses a fraction. His mouth tasted like a peat bog had pissed itself in it.

"Calling you in sick, for one. You should've called me before you got started. Only heard about it when I went past some idiot who'd been working comms. I've got to head out to Nairobi in the morning bright and early, so I won't be here to help much." No, but he was here now. That was all that mattered.

"Fucking Goa'uld. They're changing all the crypto, it's... everything's a mess." Or at least, that was what he thought he'd said, as Zechs got him to his feet and started to tug at him.

After a few long moments, he seemed to be together enough that Zechs thought he would be presentable. "Good call on the additional scans. I've set it up so that our people all know to go through more regularly." Our people because Zechs was one of them, just like Une had been, and fuck. That was disconcertingly like paranoia tingling through him. Or maybe it was just the need to vomit.

"You need to be scanned. There's so much wrong with the colonies, I don't, we've done it to them, why wouldn't it follow us home?" No, maybe presentable had been too quick an assumption.

That pat on his shoulder wasn't reassuring so much as it was comforting. Which was weirdly not the same thing at all in that moment. "Mhm. Already been scanned, friend." That. That was good. That was good, right? "Come on, there's a car waiting. I'll pour you into bed when I get you home. I'll even get some water into you before that."

"You're an angel." He inhaled through his nose and tried to stiffen his spine as they stepped through his office door and out into the hallway. It was late, so the foot traffic wasn't terrible.

"Ah, you say that now, but in the morning you'll be cursing my name if I haven't put the wastebasket close enough to the bed," Zechs murmured, hand still on his elbow to help guide him. At least he was attempting subtlety. Not that half the base probably didn't have a fair idea of his preferences, never mind some idea of just what the fuck the last twenty-four hours had been like.

Once upon a time, dealing with Goa'uld had been clinical. It had been medical, it had been surgeries and attempts to save the person, and capture the creature, and not surprisingly it had haunted them. The survivors carried echoes of their parasite, and the parasites sometimes got free and wreaked havoc. And he could have delegated, but... She deserved better than that, for him to hand her death away with her watching from inside while the creature drove her body. The fact that the Goa'uld seemed to have remembered that Earth was there was disturbing enough, but the fact that they were trying to settle themselves in positions of power and wait for the fallout...

It made him feel significantly better about his current plans. It would be laughable if he weren't so drunk and fucked up about it.

"Yes, there we go, into the car. Put on your seatbelt, sir." Ah. There they were, indeed, and the sentry was carefully paying little or no attention to them, so his drunken evening would without doubt become common knowledge in approximately three minutes.

He fumbled with the seatbelt, and grimaced to himself as he nearly secured his thumb into it as well as his body. Well, let them talk, and think about the kinds of decisions they _all_ had to make. "Thank you."

A moment later, Zechs was behind the wheel, pulling out and heading toward the road. "I'm sure she would have been grateful, you know. That you saw to it yourself."

"The least I could do for her. There was a unit a few years back that had to do it with knives. Messy business, not fast enough." He opened the glove compartment with a knee and pulled out a bag, correctly identifying the mouth watering feeling for what it was before he wrecked one of the unit vehicles.

No one vomited quietly, that much was certain. Zechs didn't bother pausing, just continued driving and stayed quiet until he managed to catch his breath. "Told you that paint thinner shit was no good for you. You should take up beer. It's a much more mellow drunk."

"Never had a taste for it." He leaned back in his seat, morosely holding onto the waxed paper bag of vomit.

Zechs hummed and continued to drive.

By the time they made it back to his on-base housing, he hadn't exactly sobered up any. Not that either of them had likely expected that he would. He wasn't even sure where his keys were until Zechs was helping him out of the car and he felt a hand rooting around in his right front pocket. "Come on. I'll get you settled in and then I have to go." Ah. Yes. Nairobi.

"I'm sorry." He wasn't sure what he was apologizing for; the war, Une, the mess with Sanc, that he had plans and plans and Zechs only knew enough not to suspect there were more layers. No one knew more than they needed to, and why? Because what had just happened was a perfect example.

"Don't be sorry. It was a shitty thing to have to do." The door was open, and Zechs at least remembered to shove his foot in the door before Galahad could escape. The giant floof of fur paused, hissed at Zechs because for some reason it abhorred him, and promptly took off for a dark corner where he would lurk and inevitably try to kill him by winding around his ankles unexpectedly.

"Always good to be welcomed home," Treize snorted, lurching further into the hallway, and getting a steadying hand on a bannister to head up the stairs. "Shame. Should've gotten a white Persian if we're going to be organizing terrorist attacks."

Zechs sighed, and it sounded impatient to his drunk mind. Maybe it was. "Come on. Don't worry about that. There's nothing to be done for it now." He paused, arm shifting around Treize's waist. "They found the daughter, by the way. I have a feeling she'll have a better title than attaché shortly."

"Oh, I agree." He knew. And Zechs knew. And perhaps Zechs knew that he knew that Zechs knew, that... He started to laugh to himself as Zechs helped him up the stairs.

By the time they fumbled their way into the bedroom, he wasn't sure about much of anything. Somewhere along the way, the bag from the car had disappeared, and that was probably bad. With his current run of luck, Galahad would find it and something remarkably terrible would follow. "Let me... yes, off with the jacket. Lie down, I'll do something about the rest. Christ, you smell like a brewery." He probably also smelled like vomit, which made the queasiness increase. "Don't think about it. I'm going to get you some water and those tablets you like. Take slow breaths."

He was sitting on the edge of his bed. He fumbled with his boots, determined to get them off while trying to get his shirt off at the same time. Both ended up on the floor.

Somewhere along the way, he laid back and only blinked open his eyes when he heard Zechs's put upon sigh. "I told you I'd take care of the rest. Here. Sit up and drink this. I've also brought a plastic bin I found under your sink." Where the hell that had come from, Treize had no idea.

"Isn't that for the pipe leak?" He reached for the glass, and clutched desperately at it to drink down its contents with steady determination not to end up wearing most of it.

Zechs took the glass from him and gently pushed him to lie down again. "Chances are slim that you'll be running water through the pipes tonight so I think it'll be safe here with you. Lie down. I'll bring you more water and headache tablets before I go." And probably strip off his trousers. This wasn't their first rodeo.

It was just life. 

Treize smiled to himself, and smeared his face into the pillow. "Mmmhmm."

"And you're out." Zechs sighed. He wasn't, quite. But Zechs was stripping off his trousers with difficulty, and finally managed to get him under the covers. Somewhere in there, Treize slept.

* * *

The first time Wufei had gone after Treize Khushrenada, he'd had intentions. 

His intention had been to chase him down and make him pay for everything that had happened on L5. The attack, the nanites, Meiran, his mother. Everything. The catastrophe at Edwards had Khushrenada's fingerprints all over it, and Chang Wufei had known that everything that happened after that would escalate. He had thought that if he went after him, it would be a simple enough matter to fight him, man to man, and win.

He had failed.

He had thought that because his cause was righteous, he would win. He had so many reasons to win and so much training. There was no way he could have known that the General was an expert in sword fighting. It wasn't even a useful skill in the kinds of battles the man was involved in. He led mobile suits into battle, he didn't... nothing fit. Nothing worked the way it should have, and then General Khushrenada had _let him go_.

That had been the start, or maybe it had just been the moment when interest had ticked over into obsession. He'd had to know what caused it.

He'd had to know _why_.

All of which led to this moment. The sky was dark above him, lit faintly to the east by city lights, but the estate where the good general was currently residing was dark on the whole, at least once Wufei had scaled up the balconies in the shadows. Heat lightning played along the horizon, and he stepped closer to the lighted window, footsteps silent.

A lamp cast faltering light from one corner. The general was seated at his laptop, half undressed for the night with his grand jacket over the back of a chair and his shirt gone, stripped down to shirtsleeves as he seemed to be working on emails. There was music playing, something easy and continental that Wufei didn't recognize. It could've been current; Winner might have known what it was.

For a moment, he lingered, teeth worrying at his lower lip as he watched. The man seemed somehow relaxed, less... Less terrifying than the kind of man who had managed to set up a massacre of the entirety of the Alliance's peaceful generals. He was now nominally or possibly actually the lead military officer on earth. It was hard to tell as the dust was still settling. The scene just wasn't what he would've expected for a man who was so... exceptional.

Taking a deep breath, Wufei reached out for the handle of the door. It turned easily beneath his fingers and pushed inward without a single creak; when he stepped inside he knew that he had the full attention of the man behind the desk, a sapphire gaze turned on him. The grey strands of hair threaded through that ginger showed brightly in the warm light. It was unsurprising when he leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled together.

"You can't have come back for a rematch." He tilted his head slightly, looking wan and tired but alert enough to put up a fight if it came to it.

"No." He wanted a great deal more than that. "I want to know why." Why he let him go. Why he had been there when they released the nanites on L5. He wanted to know everything because all he could seem to think about anymore was this bastard.

The man was silent for a moment, and then a smile curled the edges of his mouth. "Forty two." Of course he would quote classic satirical literature. "Now, what's the question?" He closed the lid of his laptop, possibly to preclude any more of a security incident.

"Why did you let me go? Why didn't you kill me there?" Wufei had thought that he would win the fight; it had seemed impossible that he wouldn't, and then Khushrenada had defeated him as easily as if it were nothing. As if it required no effort at all.

"Because if I kill you, L5 loses everything. You are their last hope. You and your fellow pilots are the last bastion, representing a huge swath of humanity." That still made no sense, and Treize leaned against the back of the chair, turning a little to better look at him.

"What is your plan?" He stalked forward, angry, the question almost a hiss as he slammed both palms onto the desk. "What is it that you think you're doing?"

"Changing the world." Khushrenada didn't flinch, although he could see the man's eyes narrow as if readying himself for action. But he was still smiling, that slight self assured smile that infuriated Wufei because who the fuck was he? To do that, to say that. "I was there when the nanites were released. We can't do business that way anymore, we can't have wars like that any longer. The colonies cannot survive as things currently are."

"None of my people will survive anyway!" And he was fucking furious, had been furious. "You've killed everyone who's still breathing without murdering them, you killed my _wife_ , my _mother_ , the only person you haven't yet killed is me!" Him, a thirty year old widower, and what the fuck was he supposed to do? What was he doing right now, for that matter? Wufei didn't fucking know.

Khushrenada started to stand, either to leave the room or otherwise get himself out of the situation. Wufei didn't know, but he didn't expect the hand on his arm. "I was a foot soldier; it wasn't my plan. When was the last time you were ill?"

That gave him pause. What the hell difference did it make? But he couldn't remember being sick since... "After she died. In a field of red flowers, you bastard." That hand was on him, and the tension in him was rising, anxiety thick against the back of his throat. "You were there. Surely you saw. You were all there."

"You were a scholar. And now you're a capable warrior, a mobile suit pilot, but how?" He kept his hand Wufei's arm.

"Hard work." He had never wanted to be the person who did this. "You think there's only one chosen track for any given person on a colony? You think that anyone who lives on a colony gets to specialize?"

"When was the last time you were injured?" Why was he asking that? He seemed to tuck something behind his back as he edged closer. "How did _you_ survive, Chang Wufei?"

And his brain went offline. Just. Blank, reboot, as if that were the one thing he couldn't think about. The one thing he couldn't know. "I. I. I."

"There we are. That's it." Treize leaned back a little, peering at him, at the same time he tugged at his arm. "That's what I was afraid of, you know? That they hadn't told you. So many secrets in the colonies, such a waste."

Wufei's eyes closed. Opened. Closed again. Flutter of lashes, confusion. There was something. Something. Something red at the edge of his gaze, fluttering, and he closed them again. Whisk of petals, and he opened his eyes and breathed out in a steady sigh. "What?"

"Welcome back." The man was smiling at him, a tighter expression, and he realized the room had reoriented around him as he was now partially looking at the ceiling and was lying atop a mattress while the General, in his t-shirt, white pants and boots, stood with his arms crossed beside him. Nothing made sense. "Shall we try again?"

"Uh... ah?" His tongue seemed tangled. "I. I seem to be missing something." And his head ached. It wasn't the first time, but it had been a while. Not since before. Before he'd left the colony.

"Yes, you are," Khushrenada said agreeably, standing still and watching him hawkishly. "If you weren't an enemy combatant, I'd get my medical staff for you."

Fuck. Fuck, that would be bad. "You can't!" Couldn't, and he pushed an elbow under him, shoving himself up before his head throbbed again, the world spinning so that he dropped back to the mattress. "Fuck. What did you do to me?" It had to be something.

"I reminded you that your people did as poor a job cleaning up the challenge given them as the people I just overthrew expected them to do." He was smiling at Wufei, so calmly. It was infuriating.

His voice was slurred when he spoke, anger making it worse. "And with what resources were they supposed to fix this, precisely?" Fuck, his head. The nanites Laoshi O’s team had created were incompatible with the ones that had been dropped on the colony, yes, but they had still taken root in him in small numbers and sometimes reacted contrary to their re-coding. Not that he wanted anyone to know about it. "They kept it from re-writing my entire body, and there weren't enough resources for an entire colony. So what do you plan to do with this little advantage, _General_?"

"I could keep discussing it and watching the damage unfold, or you could listen to me when I say that I do not want this occurring on any of the other colonies."

And the world went cold. Anger, everything, wiped itself out, and he stared at Khushrenada for a long moment. "So you already have plans in place. For the other colonies."

He didn't expect the confused expression, the way the man tilted his head. "Huh, no, not in the way that you're imagining."

There was something of a relief in that. Maybe. "And I'm sure you have no intention of informing me of your plans."

He clasped his hands together in front of himself, as if he were suppressing something in his words. "Think, Chang Wufei. You've broken into my quarters twice now, including the ship and you're still alive. Carry the implications of this fact forward. I do not mean the colonies harm."

"Then what do you mean for the colonies?" It wasn't as if the man were blameless. "We've already been made scapegoats for your coup. It isn't looking good from this angle."

"I mean to give them the traction to break free." He flashed Wufei a tight smile. "I plan to reset the board. Now, let me get you a drink and then you can be on your way."

On his... "You make no sense." None. Whatsoever in fact. "At the very least you could fight fairly!" Because this battle, this fight, with this man, was somehow the one that _mattered_. Nothing about Khushrenada made sense, not the fact that he would let Wufei walk away, not the fact that he was sufficiently sated with the murders the other pilots had committed, nothing.

Not what he had done to him to trigger a collapse, either.

"I know I make no sense. I hope I make more sense in another year. You will let me know, won't you?" His serene smile stretched, touched his eyes, but the expression there was worried, oddly tense. Khushrenada rose. "Water. I'll put a tablet in it, but it's minerals, do you understand? They deplete the minerals in your body." He moved to make a visible show of pouring two glasses of water, and pulling a tube out of a drawer in the bedside table that made Wufei think of candy.

He couldn't stop the scowl or the way that he watched as if Khushrenada might do something unexpected and fucked up instead of just dropping tablets into both of the glasses, swirling them for a moment as they dissolved and then handing one over to him. Was it because he didn't want Wufei to be suspicious or because he'd been affected by the nanites somehow? Still. Still, he reached out and took it, raising the glass and watching as Khushrenada drank, too.

It tasted like lemon and raspberries, a faint effervescence that did little to mask the soft chalky flavor beneath that. But Khushrenada drank his, then closed the cap of the tube with a familiar gesture before tucking it into the drawer again. "I leave those everywhere I travel. Does wonders for a hangover as well."

That was undoubtedly a better explanation than nanite-alteration. It still left him with a number of questions, and he couldn't help scowling as he laid down the glass and forced himself to stand. It made his left temple throb, but it at least felt somewhat better. "I don't understand you."

"Perhaps, one day." There was a crinkle at the corner of his eyes when he smiled that time, and stepped back from the bed, giving Wufei space to move unimpeded to the window. "Don't give up your fight. Your day has not yet dawned."

The water seemed to help things, even if he felt unsteady on his feet just yet. He'd get over that; had to, because he needed to be kilometers from here before the dawn came. "And when it does?"

"You will have the answers to all of your questions. Though I don't think they'll matter anymore." He smiled again, expression oddly gentle.

That clarified precisely nothing. It was enough to make him want to hit the man. Or. Or something. It was very fucking confusing, and it made his shoulders hunch in, made him glare and scowl, darkly furious. "You're maddening." And insane. Probably insane.

"I know. You could join my staff at morning standup tomorrow and complain along," he agreed, reaching a hand out to gently turn him around to face the window. "But let us try this instead."

This was nothing like what he had been expecting. Not even close. It was bewildering. "Why are you just letting me go?" That was what he wanted to know. That was the entire reason he'd come here, and all it had left behind were more questions. More confusion, because he was doing it _again_.

"Because I want you to win."

"What the fuck." Insane clearly wasn't the appropriate word. "What the literal..."

"Go."

That hand lightly pushed against his back, and Wufei stepped out onto the balcony before he turned around only to find that the door had been closed behind him. He heard the lock click into place.

"What the fuck?" he said to himself again, feeling infinitely lost. 

That made no sense. None of it made sense, and he walked backwards to the edge of the balcony, staring at the locked and closed doors.

Dammit.

Just. Dammit, and he placed one hand on the railing, vaulting over it and dangling for a moment before letting go and landing lightly on the balls of his feet. Might as well get going before the madman upstairs decided to call some kind of security on him.

He'd work out just what the fuck the man was thinking later.

* * *

His staff had done him the kindness of placing Zechs in a wing of the brig different from where Une had been held. If things kept up, he was simply going to have to burn down the base, or he could allow the Gundams to do it.

He was starting to run out of staff.

Treize scowled as he stalked in, the concrete floors echoing back each step loudly until he reached the cell where they'd imprisoned Zechs. The annoying bastard was laid back on the thin green mat of the bunk, legs crossed at the knees, hands folded together behind his head. "If you're here to lecture me, don't bother."

"I would not even know where to start," Treize said firmly, politely. He lingered close to the bars, not quite touching it yet. "You... are infuriating, my friend."

"And yet you still call me your friend." Slowly, Zechs uncrossed his legs and pushed himself to sitting. "You know how I feel about a fair fight. You've always known. Hell, I'm fairly certain it's in the history books these days." Under more than one name, in point of fact.

"An unnecessary fair fight. A fair fight for no purpose at all." He leaned faintly closer to the bars.

Zechs looked at him, head tilted to the side. "I wanted to see who was the better pilot. And now I know. Or at least I know more than I did before, in any case. They seem so young." Compared to men who'd been fighting for decades, he supposed mid-twenties to thirties could be considered children. Or perhaps Zechs was referring to the size of them, since all of the pilots they'd managed to verify so far were short except for one. The kind of short that required step ladders in the kitchen, Treize expected.

"That is a very patronizing way to talk about the enemy combatants who have murdered so many of your comrades." He hovered as close to the bars as he dared, watching Zechs.

The flash of icy-blue gaze caught his. "You've met at least one of them. What did you think?" And Zechs had now met two. That left the pilots of 02 and 04 as unknowns.

"I think they're formidable foes who don't need to be handed a 'fair fight' to assuage your conscience." And now he knew how this was going to end. He wasn't going to be able to get Zechs off of a treason charge.

Goddammit, it was... it was too soon. He remembered his mother saying something about Leopold, Zechs's father, and how he'd just sort of steadily tottered off the deep end until it ended in the destruction of Sanc. His father's father had done, too, although his preferred obsession had been, of all things, Victorian pornography, which no one had minded unless they were at a dinner party. Couldn't Zechs have chosen something less likely to end in a bloody screaming disaster?

Considering his history, probably not.

"They are indeed formidable foes," Zechs agreed, and he allowed a smile to curve his lips, humorless and wry. "I know what you're going to have to do. And I don't hold it against you. Probably. I made my bed, and now I must lie in it."

He could stand there and tell his friend all about himself until he was blue in the face, so Treize inhaled and then exhaled slowly through his nose. It wouldn't do any good. "Yes. Unfortunately just so."

"I'll try not to hold it against you." And there, that was the warmth he'd always given, Zechs looking away toward the barred window. "Whatever you come up with, I'll do my best to make it look good."

"I'd prefer you do your best to survive," Treize deadpanned, leaning a hand on one bar of his cell.

"You'd prefer I hadn't done it at all." There wasn't a damn thing to be done about it now, of course, except hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Zechs nodded reading his expression. "It's the only promise I can make you. I would apologize, but you'd know that I don't really mean it, so what's the point?" He sighed, leaning against the wall behind him. "I didn't mean to undermine you or anything that we've done. I just..."

He couldn't help himself. Treize knew. He was aware of the family history, perhaps more so than Zechs himself. It was a bloody disaster. "Had to see who was the better pilot. Not that it matters." Just the good old family whatever in their line, and it honestly made him want to despair for Zechs's sister. Maybe he should just have her assassinated before she had the chance to lose her goddamn mind.

"Funny. Noin said the same thing." Yes, well. Noin had good sense, for the most part. That was more than he could say for Zechs at this point.

"And on the one hand, I see the point. But on the other... I had to know."

And now he was going to be killed for treason, and Treize felt his jaw clench as he leaned just slightly against the bars. "Would you like a last meal, a last drink?"

"A last fuck?" He shouldn't be able to smile and lean back so easily. "No, Treize. I knew what I was doing, even though I also knew I was... possibly not making the best decisions." Zechs sighed. "It was easier before the Alliance ended. To see things, I mean. To see the right path. Romefeller's path isn't the one either of us would choose, but our feet are on it now and I just... It's fine."

"You were never good with temporary diversions," Treize sighed, unable to stop staring at his friend. "You outsmarted yourself."

"Damaged your plans, too. I'd apologize if it would help any. As it is..."

As it was, his head hurt. Treize sighed and clutched at the bars. "Can't change time or poor decisions. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

And Zechs just looked at him, and managed to give him a smile. "Something to read. I can't imagine how long I'll be here."

They wouldn't keep him too long, not when they had someone treasonous to do away with. "I'll keep you in books until you're not here." Maybe he could at least come up with something that would give Zechs a chance of living through it.

Lacking that, he would do something to make sure his death was quick.

* * *

Everything was unraveling.

He'd put it down to stress, and had taken a bath, gotten just the right level of drunk, and then half dried off, and headed over to the room where he kept some of his more interesting experiments.

The thing about his work was that sometimes interesting bits of technology filtered down to him from odd places. The fact that these particular plans involved learning a dead language wasn't any sort of difficulty; more like a challenge, and he'd buckled down to it in the hopes of finding some way of extracting Goa'uld from the host. Obviously that had been a failure; what it hadn't been was useless. Plans for a ZERO system -- who knew when that term had even come into use -- that would work as an interactive interface between pilot and mobile suit had come out of the research. Oh, he was sure that wasn't what the original design was meant to be. The Alterans had been peaceful to the point of extinction. But it seemed logical enough to him, and so he was going to see what he could do to put those plans into use.

He locked the door to his space, turned on his comms unit if someone felt they must reach him, and then he studied the plans and started to rummage the room for what he'd need.

The fancier stuff was all well and good, but most of it wasn't with him at the moment. He'd managed to make it through most of the coding and now it was just a matter of hooking it up and creating the input device. Treize was sure that the nanite coding could be appropriately altered to make the input automatic and immediate.

Nanites. Alterans and the damn nanites, and they would haunt them all forever. Humanity would be wiped from the planet and some nick of a metallic cell would be busy rebuilding them all in its best memory. It was the easiest way to create the connection, and he'd had some experience with programming them. After what happened on L5-A0206, he'd had to think fast to save his own damn neck. Meeting Wufei had been, if anything, an encouragement to get better at it more quickly. There was something about him that caught Treize's attention. He wasn't sure what it was, but Treize was sure that he wanted to be able to correct whatever after effects he might be suffering. God alone knew how fucked up what the Alliance had done was. Or what the colonists had done to try and correct it.

The things he'd done to himself, on the other hand, he considered reliable, given that he was still upright and sitting uncomfortably hunched over a keyboard. It wasn't as if it were time to give up, but everything was slipping through his fingers like he was cupping water and grand plans felt like they were melting away. This was at least something he had control over, something that he could use to map his way through the minefield his life had become.

He'd take what he could get at this point. He'd figured out how to deal with his own nanites; no one who'd been at the assault on the L5 colony had escaped entirely unscathed. The Alliance hadn't given a fuck that they all died along with the colonists. And that was the crux of the problem, wasn't it? The Alliance didn't give a fuck. The Alliance wanted to maintain a status quo, a quaking fear of change, while escalating what they considered acceptable in the world. They wanted to keep a consolidation of power, more than they wanted to improve the lot of anyone on Earth or the colonies and...

And he wasn't sure if he should have drank more or less when he eased himself into the cockpit seat, and powered up the ZERO system.

A few keystrokes later, and he was absolutely certain that it wouldn't have helped a single thing even if he had been stone cold sober. It hit him hard and he didn't know if his head had flung itself back or if it only felt like it. It was akin to knocking himself out tripping down the back stairs and landing on his face.

There was... a great deal, and it didn't leave space for him to think for a few minutes. Most of those minutes had been paralytic, like swimming through mud but without a struggle to breathe. So many possibilities, thought after thought after thought flitting through his mind and fuck. Fuck, that was... that was...

Everything ended badly. Everything ended in fire, and each flicker of thought passed on to new and interesting ways for it to happen. He had been right; everything was spiraling out of control, everything was going wrong, and he stepped through options, tried new things, twisted and played with what ZERO was providing him.

Treize shuddered, or maybe his brain shivered, some kind of reaction to ZERO and its connection through the nanites in his brain. Nausea rose, but he kept flicking through possibilities, each one blinking into existence between the lowering of his lashes and them rising again. Zechs yet lived, would continue living, even if he were mad. He had the most appalling luck, or something like it. The Gundam pilots were on various paths, and death... death was everywhere. His death, the death of the Earth, the death of the colonists, apocalyptic doom that made every war before this one look like the merest of childhood games.

His fault. His fault, he felt it deeply in his bones because he was wound into it, his family was wound into it like thread caught in a gearbox that someone else had built. He followed that thread, he was that thread, and he finally saw the gears that meshed out something less ruinous. Something toward peace.

Saw the face of Chang Wufei, saw the tears and the anger and the heartbreak he would have to cause, and he ached, because of course.

_Of course._

He played it through again, and again, and he saw the Mars colony and life, continuation, a distant future out there, and modeled it with care in his mind, testing options. Checking to see what would work, what he could do.

What might happen.

What could be avoided.

The longer he contemplated it, the more tangled the threads grew, the more obvious the answer was. Treize could hear himself laughing or maybe crying, he wasn't sure which. It didn't matter which because there was one, one key incident. Just the one.

Well, it looked like he was the damn problem in the end, and that was... he could deal with that, even as he disengaged from the system and sat in the cockpit, giggling and weeping. So many dead. So many people dead, so many people left behind, damaged, broken, and him being the one who made all of it happen. He'd have to sit and find his way through it, he'd have to figure out what to do, and he didn't know if he would have the strength to do it. 

He slouched in the cockpit, and let his head fall back, weak with the disorientation and glad that he'd locked himself in. Eventually, he'd collect himself, and let himself out.

Eventually, he'd start making plans.


End file.
